Competition Eighteen Shortlisted: Things I Can’t Forget from Six Days That Summer by Chris Cottom

The dust on your floaty skirt when I offered you a lift. The swirly writing on the cardboard sign saying ‘Norwich’ which you left on the verge in the dusk.

My steamed-up bathroom after your hour-long shower. The leathery omelette you pushed around your plate.

Backache from my two-seater sofa because I insisted you had the bed.

The Hawkwind t-shirt you borrowed after showering again in the morning, your honey-coloured hair turbaned in a towel.

The creak on the stair that second night before you tiptoed to the sofa. Your bottom lip trembling as I wrapped you in my dressing gown and held you close.

The scribbled Norwich address I found in the bin.

Your smile when you floated a fresh sheet high to the ceiling before lying with me in a trapezium of sunshine, touching only fingertips across pure linen snow.

The hint of cinnamon when you made savoury crumble, after I pledged to eat veggie because you couldn’t kiss a carnivore.

The mouse-grey bruise on your milk-pale breast, and every other question I didn’t ask.

The way you tied a tea towel around my neck before we ate spaghetti.

The X you used in SAX on a triple word score – proof, you said, that Scrabble beats the telly any day. The Y you added the following night to my DOLL, before sobbing in my arms.

The list you sent me shopping with: soya mince, macaroni, tinned tomatoes, and a multipack of Tesco knickers, size 10.

My hour in the carpark, staring at the front page of the East Anglian Daily Times.

How carefully you’d closed my downstairs curtains.

The teething ring I found after they came for you.

My letter of thanks from the investigating officer.

Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. He has work published or forthcoming in 100 Word Story, Eastern Iowa Review, Flash 500, Leon Literary Review, NFFD NZ, NFFD UK, On The Premises, One Wild Ride, Oxford Flash Fiction, Roi Fainéant, The Hooghly Review, The Phare, and others. In the early 1970s he lived next door to JRR Tolkien.

*